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Unsold sea of hybrids

Discussion in 'Prius, Hybrid, EV and Alt-Fuel News' started by nerfer, Mar 5, 2009.

  1. qbee42

    qbee42 My other car is a boat

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    There aren't that many people in the U.S. Did she actually say that?

    Tom
     
  2. donee

    donee New Member

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    Hi All,

    Not credible. As there are about 600,000 Prius that have been sold in the US since 2000. And about 1.1 million world wide.

    As the Prius makes up about 80 % of the hybrids sold, that would mean almost everybody on Prius Chat must have their car on consignment at a local dealer. I don't, you guys don't. Therefore the NY Times guy is incompetent.
     
  3. a priori

    a priori Canonus Curiosus

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    C'mon, Donee, get in the spirit of this thread and post outrageous or ridiculous exaggerations. Please!
     
  4. JimN

    JimN Let the games begin!

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    I'm waiting for the "twofer" sale or buy a 2010 at MSRP and get a 2009 for $1.

    I have a couple of empty spaces on my driveway. Maybe I should offer remote storage space to the dealer.
     
  5. DaveinOlyWA

    DaveinOlyWA 3rd Time was Solariffic!!

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    some airline is selling tickets for $2 for its detroit to new york run....close
     
  6. magruder

    magruder Average Member

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    She did actually say that. In her defense, she surely meant 500,000 jobs are being lost every month. I heard on the radio this morning someone talking about the 600,000 hybrids that are sitting on dealer lots. Does prius really have 80% of the market? Is it possible that there are 600,000 hybrids of all makes at dealers right now? That's an average of 12,000 cars per state. Did someone say there are about 2,500 dealers in the U.S.? That's about 5 hybrids per dealer, on average.

    Dave
     
  7. ronhowell

    ronhowell Active Member

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    Get your arithmetic correct. 600,000 hybrid cars spread among 2,500 dealers in the U.S. is an average of 240 cars per dealer, not 5.
     
  8. qbee42

    qbee42 My other car is a boat

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    What a putz. I may have liberal views, but that woman bothers me. She strikes me as your standard political animal party politician.

    Put them all on the B Ship.

    Tom
     
  9. magruder

    magruder Average Member

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    Thanks for the correction. I got carried away and divided 2500 into 12000 instead of 600000. I don't know how many vehicles dealers generally have, but 240 hybrids per dealer sound awfully high. Perhaps they are including flex fuel vehicles in the 600000?

    Dave
     
  10. DaveinOlyWA

    DaveinOlyWA 3rd Time was Solariffic!!

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    everyone is throwing around numbers that are less ridiculous than hers...

    2500 dealers in the US?? hmmm... that makes an average of 50 per state?? the automall in Olympia alone has like at least 25 and their automall is pretty small in comparison to an average city.

    once again. there is a lot of cars unsold period.
     
  11. ronhowell

    ronhowell Active Member

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    In that article the reporter also reported the following "This whole idea that small cars are unsafe needs to be exploited," said marketing guru Richard Edelman, CEO of PR firm Edelman.
    I'm sure what Edelman said was "exploded" not "exploited". The only ones who would benefit from exploitation would be the Big Three.
     
  12. magruder

    magruder Average Member

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    According to cardealersusa, there are at least 23,000 dealers in the us. That makes an average of 26 hybrids per dealer, that sounds more reasonable.

    Dave
     
  13. Patrick Wong

    Patrick Wong DIY Enthusiast

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    Not all auto dealers represent brands that offer hybrids for sale.

    The count of US Toyota dealers is ~1,200. I recall seeing somewhere that the count of GM dealers is ~5,000 which is a big problem since they have too many dealers and too few sales/dealer.
     
  14. DaveinOlyWA

    DaveinOlyWA 3rd Time was Solariffic!!

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    ok, i know i have seen it posted here, but lets compare sales figures of the Prius from say april to august of 2008

    and for the past 3 months.

    the first period had pretty much no extra Pri's available because gas was $4 a gallon and Pri's were selling for premium prices, but new and used. so how many were sold back then??? 17,000-18,000 a month??? dont remember, but i think that is close. now pretty much all that were available to be sold were sold....

    so we can assume that over the past few months, whatever sales figures were that subtract that from say 18,000 (or whatever the sales for last summer were, i actually think it was a bit lower...)

    and that gives us what i think would be a fairly accurate unsold car volume. so what was in Jan 2009???... was nt it like 14,000-15,000?? so that would make 3,000 unsold for that month? am i close. i really dont remember jan figures at all
     
  15. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    Hummer seems to prefer hotel / motel parking lots (can't find the pic right now) as their l.o.b. (line of business) is taking it in the shorts too ... and at least that way, the hotels make SOME money.

    btw, anyone seen a picture of those 100,000 to 600,000 hybrids?

    EDIT:
    Didn't think so. On the other hand:

    [​IMG]

    And, from August of last year, still sittn'

    [​IMG]

    and on and on

    [​IMG]

    A picture is worth a thousand what .... hummers?

    Now ... show me the hybrids, not the outside of a boat please.
     
  16. DaveinOlyWA

    DaveinOlyWA 3rd Time was Solariffic!!

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    ok found it. difference in sales for 2008 opver 2009 YTD is about 7000...

    Toyota Reports February Sales

    ok numbers were way off though. apparently only selling 10-12000 Pri's per month in the good times. so piling up extra Pri's at the rate of around 3-4000 a month. so we say slow sales since last October, thats 5 months now so we looking at around 20,000 extra Pri's on the lots...

    HEY WAIT!!! who had predicted that??? oh ya!!! that was me... but then again, i talked to a Toyota Salesman last tuesday and it was actually him that came up with that number.

    he also mentioned that there were close to 150,000 Camry's waiting to be sold


    **edit**

    just had to throw this in... original article may have some basis in fact, but lets face facts, you cannot throw the Prius in with the "general Hybrid" category. its domination of the class puts itself into a class by itself, so we can be pretty safe is saying

    "as hybrids go, the Prius does not as it makes its own path"
     
  17. john1701a

    john1701a Prius Guru

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    Sadly, some still don't know what a hybrid is. So misinterpretation (or worse, intentional misleading) is quite possible. Basically, anything not "traditional" can easily fall into that category... including diesel and cars like Smart.
    .
     
  18. EZW1

    EZW1 Active Member

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    I have a huge problem with this and knowing it is from AutoNation, I'm not surprised: Toyota claims it has sold slightly over a million Pri since its introduction in 2001. Another poster here says there are 1200 Toyota dealers nation wide. If the average number of unsold cars on the lot amounted to.. say 20, then there are about 24,000 unsold cars. This is a far cry from 600,000.

    What a putz!
     
  19. EZW1

    EZW1 Active Member

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    Okay.. that means there are 59,800 unsold Pri.... NOT 600,000!
     
  20. magruder

    magruder Average Member

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    The article claims that Autonation has 600,000 unsold hybrids, not just Prii. That said, I don't know how many dealerships Autonation owns, but the statement sounds crazy anyhow. It would be interesting to see how that number was calculated. Does this have something to do with the Obama stimulus plan?